Uttar Pradesh government assures World Bank of development

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday assured a visiting World Bank team that it would complete all the projects funded by it in the next five years rather than the stipulated time line of seven years.

The assurance, to the team led by Jun Matsumoto, was given by Irrigation Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, who also claimed that the state had set a new record by increasing the flow in the Lower Ganga Irrigation System from 4,200 cusecs to 6,380 cusecs.

Yadav also promised the World Bank team to take them on a chopper ride on their next visit to 16 districts where World Bank-aided schemes and projects are underway so they can themselves see the progress and meet the 1 lakh beneficiaries.

A farmer stands on cracked earth that three weeks earlier created the bottom of a reservoir on his farm, in Groot Marico, South Africa. VOA

The World Bank has announced it is doubling its funding to help poor nations adjust to global warming to $200 billion over five years.

“If we don’t reduce emissions and build adaption now, we’ll have 100 million more people living in poverty by 2030,” the bank’s climate change chief John Roome told the French News Agency.

“And we also know that the less we address this issue proactively in just three regions – Africa, South Asia, and Latin America – we’ll have 133 million climate migrants, Roone cautioned.”

Helping poorer nations adapt to a warmer environment and the weather extremes that come with it include building sturdier homes, finding new sources of fresh water, and what the bank calls “climate smart agriculture.”

An ice crevasse is seen on the Baishui Glacier No. 1, the world’s fastest melting glacier due to its proximity to the Equator, on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the southern province of Yunnan in China. VOA

The World bank ‘s announcement comes as delegates from 200 countries started a two week-long climate change conference in Katowice, Poland.

The threat posed by global warming “has never been worse,” U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said at the start of climate talks in Poland.

“This year is likely to be one of the four hottest years on record. Climate change impacts have never been worse. This reality is telling us that we need to much more,” she said Sunday.

Negotiators from nearly 200 nations are in the southern Polish city of Katowice for two weeks of talks on implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Accord. Signatories to that agreement pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in global temperatures to less than two degrees Celsius by 2030.

The United States was the only holdout. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement because of what he says is the economic damage the treaty’s provisions would cause.

Trump is a promoter of fossil fuels and nuclear power and has proposed renegotiating the Paris Accord – an idea many dismiss as impractical.